Mularkey fired after 1 year by Jaguars

FILE - This Dec. 16, 2012 file photo shows Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Mike Mularkey on the sidelines during the second half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins in Miami. The Jaguars have fired Mularkey after one season, the worst in franchise history. New general manager David Caldwell made the announcement Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The more Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan watched his team play, the more he realized one thing:

“We needed a rebuild from the ground up,” Khan said.

So the Jaguars fired coach Mike Mularkey on Thursday after just one season, the worst in franchise history. The move came 10 days after Khan fired general manager Gene Smith.

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Khan also introduced new GM David Caldwell on Thursday, and by parting ways with Mularkey, gave him a clean slate heading into 2013.

“I bring a track record of success,” Caldwell said. “I’ve never endured a sustainable losing team.”

But maybe the biggest nugget came when Caldwell said New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow is not in the team’s plans.

“I can’t imagine a scenario where he will be a Jacksonville Jaguar.” Caldwell said.

Mularkey, who went 2-14 this season, became the eighth head coach fired since the end of the regular season. He looked like he would be one and done when owner Shad Khan parted ways with general manager Gene Smith last week and gave Mularkey’s assistants permission to seek other jobs. Even though Khan ultimately hired Mularkey, Smith directed the coaching search last January that started and ended with the former Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator.

“Mike Mularkey is leaving our organization with my utmost respect,” Khan said. “Mike gave the Jaguars everything he had on and off the field, and his efforts as our head coach will always be appreciated.”

Mularkey’s brief tenure — he didn’t even last a year — was filled with mistakes. His biggest one may have been his loyalty to Smith, who assembled a roster that lacked talent on both sides of the ball.

Mularkey probably stuck with Smith’s franchise quarterback, Blaine Gabbert, longer than he should have. And the coach’s insistence that the team was closer than outsiders thought and his strong stance that he had the roster to turn things around became comical as the losses mounted. The Jaguars lost eight games by at least 16 points, a staggering number of lopsided losses in a parity-filled league.

Mularkey would have been better served had he said publicly what he voiced privately: that the Jaguars didn’t have enough playmakers or a starting-caliber quarterback.

Instead, he never conceded that Jacksonville was a rebuilding project that needed time.

Researchers: NFL’s Seau had brain disease

When he ended his life last year by shooting himself in the chest, Junior Seau had a degenerative brain disease often linked with repeated blows to the head.

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health said Thursday the former NFL star’s abnormalities are consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

The hard-hitting linebacker played for 20 NFL seasons with San Diego, Miami and New England before retiring in 2009. He died at age 43 of a self-inflicted gunshot in May, and his family requested the analysis of his brain.

“We saw changes in his behavior and things that didn’t add up with him,” his ex-wife, Gina, told The Associated Press. “But (CTE) was not something we considered or even were aware of. But pretty immediately (after the suicide) doctors were trying to get their hands on Junior’s brain to examine it.”

The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., studied three unidentified brains, one of which was Seau’s, and said the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people “with exposure to repetitive head injuries.”

“It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth,” Gina Seau added, “and now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously. You can’t deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There’s such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE.”

In the final years of his life, Seau had wild behavioral swings, according to Gina and to 23-year-old son, Tyler, along with signs of irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression.

“He emotionally detached himself and would kind of `go away’ for a little bit,” Tyler Seau said. “And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse.”

He hid it well in public, they said, but not when he was with family or close friends.

Seau joins a list of several dozen football players who were found to have CTE. Boston University’s center for study of the disease reported last month that 34 former pro players and nine who played only college football suffered from CTE.

The NFL faces lawsuits by thousands of former players who say the league withheld information on the harmful effects of concussions. According to an AP review of 175 lawsuits, 3,818 players have sued. At least 26 Hall of Famer members are among the players who have done so.

The National Football League, in an email to the AP, said: “We appreciate the Seau family’s cooperation with the National Institutes of Health. The finding underscores the recognized need for additional research to accelerate a fuller understanding of CTE.

“The NFL, both directly and in partnership with the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and other leading organizations, is committed to supporting a wide range of independent medical and scientific research that will both address CTE and promote the long-term health and safety of athletes at all levels.”

NFL teams have given a $30 million research grant to the NIH.

Harbaugh sticking with Akers

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — David Akers is keeping his job as San Francisco’s starting kicker. For now, anyway.

Jim Harbaugh made the announcement after practice Thursday, two days ahead of the 49ers’ NFC divisional playoff game against the Green Bay Packers (12-5) at Candlestick Park.

The 49ers signed Billy Cundiff on Jan. 1 to compete with Akers, a 15-year veteran who has struggled this season while making only 29 of 42 field-goal attempts. Akers revealed last week he underwent double hernia surgery last February.

Cundiff, who missed a potential tying 32-yarder that kept Baltimore and Harbaugh’s big brother, John, from reaching the Super Bowl last season, will remain on the roster.

Harbaugh said he isn’t likely to be among the active players Saturday.

Jaguars not interesteed in Tebow

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Tim Tebow won’t be playing for his hometown team.

The Jacksonville Jaguars made it clear Thursday that they have no plans to pursue the popular and polarizing New York Jets backup quarterback.

The Jets are likely to release the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and Jacksonville native during the offseason, and many believed Tebow would land with the Jaguars. ESPN quoted a source who said it was a “virtual certainty” that Tebow would play in Jacksonville in 2013.

But new general manager David Caldwell nixed that idea at his introductory news conference, saying, “I can’t imagine a scenario in which he’ll be a Jacksonville Jaguar — even if he’s released.”

Owner Shad Khan asked former GM Gene Smith to acquire Tebow last March, but the left-hander chose the Jets.